17 expert tips for iPhone owners - Restore system crashes, stream music, extend battery life

1. Remedy system lockups

Apple's iPhone runs a scaled down version of Mac OS X, and, just like Mac OS X, problems occasionally occur. If your iPhone locks up on you, try pressing the Home button for six seconds. This will force quit the application you're currently using. Still no response? Then press and hold both the Home button and the Sleep/Wake button at the top of the iPhone for ten seconds. This will force the handset to restart.

2. Alarming issues

If you want to sleep peacefully without being woken by audible message alerts or emails, go into the Settings menu and set your iPhone to Airplane Mode before hitting the sack. This disables all of the iPhone's communication capabilities, but the alarm will still sound off in the morning.

3. Easy text deletion

The inability to select text on the iPhone not only prevents you from copying and pasting, but also from deleting large swathes of text at a time. Fortunately, you don't have to peck away at the delete key when you want to rewrite something; just press it once and keep your finger on it. Text will start being deleted letter by letter, then, after a couple seconds, word by word.

4. Accurate text placement

Inserting text in exactly the right place can sometimes be difficult if you just tap a fat finger on the desired area on the iPhone screen. To make things easier, press the area and then keep your finger held down. After a second, a small magnifying glass with a cursor will appear above your finger, enabling you to precisely place the insertion point, even if it's within a word or URL. Much better.

5. Improve the battery life

If you wish to maximise your iPhone's battery life, there are a few key settings you should adjust. First, turn the screen brightness down as low as you can without losing legibility. Even in direct sunlight, you might be surprised to find that 50% brightness (or less) is still perfectly adequate.

Next, disable Wi-Fi when you're out and about - your iPhone will consume extra battery power monitoring nearby wireless networks and looking for open ones to join.

6. Quick-browse your files

When your iPhone is chocka with contact information, iTunes tracks and video files, browsing through them all can be a pain. But there is a shortcut that many iPhone users often forget about. See the small letters on the right-hand side of the lists? These enable you to jump immediately to the entries that begin with that letter. Better still, if you keep your finger on that area and flick it up or down, you can also rapidly scroll through entries by their first letter.

7. How to easily transfer images

Create a new folder on your Mac or PC for pictures you want to transfer to the iPhone. Then set this folder to synchronise with the iPhone through iTunes. Then all you have to do to transfer a picture from computer to phone is drop it into the afforementioned folder and sync.

8. Take a picture of yourself

Taking a photo of yourself can be trickier than you'd think with the iPhone, since the camera is on the back of the device and it lacks a tactile button (or a mini-mirror). But there is an easy solution: fire up the Camera application, put your finger on the camera button to take a picture, but don't lift it off. Now flip the iPhone around - only when you release your finger will the picture be captured.

9. Minimise interference

The iPhone can work with many existing iPod accessories, including plenty of speaker systems. The only problem is that the iPhone's GSM wireless signal can create interference that speakers output as a hiss of static. Avoid this by simply putting your iPhone into Airplane Mode when docked.

10. Ensure a scratch-free screen

Protect that glass! The iPhone is impressively durable and the glass screen can stand up to considerable abuse, but why risk chipping or scratching the display when a cheap solution can prevent that from happening? Plenty of custom-cut iPhone screen protectors are available for purchase for around £5, while some casesalso include them. Get one with a privacy finish that prevents the screen from being viewed at an angle. The best part is that the touchscreen's performance is not at all impeded.

11. Use RSS when you're on EDGE

Loading large websites on the iPhone can be an experiment in patience, especially when the data is arriving over O2's currently patchy EDGE network. Using RSS feeds (viewed via the .Mac Reader) can help. For example, you can get tech.co.uk's main feed here. The BBC news head lines are here. And so on.

For a similar experience, check out Leaflets. This site featrures iPhone apps that run within Safari and deliver an iPhone experience for sites, including Flickr, the New York Times, Digg, del.icio.us, and more.

12. Visit iPhone-friendly sites

Many websites now have iPhone-optimised versions of their pages, like Facebook and Amazon UK, while others have elements crafted entirely for the iPhone from the ground up, like a version of Bejeweled for the iPhone from Pop Cap games. Other sites, meanwhile, serve as directories for these excellent iPhone sites, one good one being Launchrz.

13. Instant messaging

One of the iPhone's biggest omissions thus far is a native IM application. Thankfully, web-based solutions can bring that functionality to the iPhone. You can try Mundu, which supports Yahoo!, MSN, AIM, and GTalk; or Meebo, which also has a newly implemented iPhone page.

14. Skype on the iPhone

Running Skype on your iPhone is a relatively new development, but the folks at Germany-based SHAPE Services have come up with an elegant solution called IM+ for Skype. After logging in with your Skype details and mobile number, you get full access to your Skype account, including free instant messaging and support for paid SkypeOut calls. It was a bit ropey when we tried it, so there's room for improvement. Registration for the service will cost you $25.

15. Turn your iPhone into a hard drive

Unlike an iPod, an out-of-the-box iPhone can't be used as a portable hard drive. The file system remains hidden when it's plugged into a Mac or PC. Ecamm's iPhoneDrive works around this limitation, providing drag-and-drop file transfer between a Mac and iPhone. Yeah, it's a fudge. But it works.

16. Great free music on tap

If you're pver-played the tunes on your iPhone, scour the web for more. To make things easy, point Safari to SeeqPod, a website that links you to music freely available online and bands you never even knew existed. SeeqPod has a slick iPhone-optimised interface (that automatically loads when you access it from your iPhone), and since Safari can play MP3 files in the background, once you have a tune playing you can return to using your iPhone for other things.

17. Insure your iPhone

The iPhone is slim; it feels fragile; you wouldn't want to test the fact that it can apparently survive a drop of about three feet. Phone insurance is the obvious answer, but shop around for the cheapest deal. Carphone Warehouse offers Lifeline Mobile Phone Insurance at £11.98 per month (with one month free). O2, meanwhile, offers their own insurance for £7.50 per month. Or add the iPhone to your existing house insurance...

This article is adapted frrom an article that first appeared in MacFormat, issue 189.

MacFormat